From the New York Times bestselling author of The Grilling Season comes a delectably deadly new novel of savory dishes and unsavory deeds, as caterer-turned-sleuth Goldy Schulz must find the missing ingredient in a killer concoction of high fashion, low-life, and murder.

An unscrupulous new rival has pushed Goldy's beloved catering business to the brink of collapse. An even more unscrupulous local contractor has left her precious kitchen in a shambles. Yet Goldy has joined forces with her old mentor, French chef André Hibbard, to cater a fashion photo shoot at a turn-of-the-century mountain cabin. There, in a hopelessly outdated kitchen, Goldy and André struggle to create warming Models' Mushroom Soup Savory Florentine Cheesecakes, and a luscious spread for a vain and vacuous crowd of beautiful people whose personal dramas climax when a camera is pitched through a plateglass window...into the buffet.

Things go swiftly from bad to worse when the infamous building contractor, Gerald Eliot, is found strung up in the house of one of Goldy's best friends. Goldy is certain that her friend isn't a killer--even if he had every motive for murder. After all, how many others would have cheerfully strangled unethical Mr. Eliot, including Goldy?

Now Goldy readies for a society soiree tasting party against her archnemesis that could make or break her career. As she prepares Big-Bucks Bread Pudding, André's Coq au Vin, and Jailbreak Potatoes, Goldy faces the shock of a second murder closer to home. Suddenly she must find the ingredients of a mystery that includes the dead contractor's unwholesome past, a food saboteur and the theft of three historical cookbooks. What she comes up with is the perfect recipe for murder. And Goldy may be the next one on the menu!

Product Description

From Amazon

You could die from reading one of Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mysteries: this one includes recipes for Jailbreak Potatoes (butter, whipping cream, freshly grated Parmesan cheese) and Labor Day Flourless Chocolate Cake with Berries, Melba Sauce, and White Chocolate Cream (butter, chocolate, eggs, sugar, whipping cream). So you might want to take both the recipes and Davidson's pinball machine-like plots in small bites. This time, caterer Goldy Schulz careens between the worlds of contracting and high fashion models, with bodies from both camps falling into the food. It's all in fun, and readers have been lapping up Davidson's merry mélanges with increasing appetite. Catering to Nobody, The Cereal Murders, Dying for Chocolate, The Grilling Season, Killer Pancake, and The Main Corpse are available on the paperback menu. --Dick Adler--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In the markedly lighthearted eighth outing (after The Grilling Season, 1997), Aspen Meadows, Colo., caterer Goldy Schulz is ousted from her kitchen. Bilked, like many other residents, by local contractor Gerald Eliot, her workplace in a shambles, she agrees to help her old teacher, Chef Andre, as he caters a Christmas catalogue fashion shoot. On the way home from the acrimonious set, she stops by to visit her friend Cameron Burr, whose house has also been ravaged by Eliot. Searching for a coffee pot, she discovers Eliot's dead body. At the scene, the police find one of four cookbooks that had been stolen from the museum where Eliot was a part-time guard. Goldy's husband, Tom (a cop), has a confrontation with his rude and politically ambitious boss and is suspended from the force while charges of insubordination are investigated. Compounding Goldy's problems is an aggressive new local caterer who seems bent on stealing Goldy's clients. When Andre is killed, Goldy slips into her super-detective mode to find out who murdered two such disparate victims and why the antique cookbooks were stolen. Despite the accumulation of bad news, Goldy retains her optimism. Davidson laces her frothy tale with 11 calories-be-damned recipes likely to keep readers satisfied on the gustatory front as well as the narrative one. Simultaneous BDD audio; author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.

Most helpful customer reviews

In the last two years, I've been reading (or re-reading) the Goldy series in order. I strongly urge anyone considering reading these books to try to read them in order also. Quite simply, half of the fun of this series is following Goldy, Tom, Arch, Julian, Marla and the rest of the gang as their lives evolve. Sure, DMD provides sketchy background fillers, but it really helps to know what has happened in the past to understand the present in this book.That being said, this is a good read. The book is broken up into more or less equal parts of Goldy's home life (Tom's suspended and decides to remodel the kitchen, Julian's back and Marla's being audited, and Arch is talking about finding a girlfriend); trying to salvage her business against a ruthless new competitor; and poking her nose into the murders of (1)the contractor who trashed her kitchen and, then, (2) her cooking mentor. Lots of the action takes place in an old homesteader's cabin - the site of a catalog modeling shoot which was also the site of the murders. Goldy is feeding the models and starts to wonder.As a Colorado resident, I continue to enjoy this series. DMD does a nice job in this book of working a little bit of local history into modern day life in Colorado. Skimpy models wearing lingerie in a homesteader's cabin in the mountains. Just thinking about it....

The series of Mott Davidson's mysteries featuring Goldy the caterer is among my favorites. But I've come to expect a bit more of her than what I read in "Prime Cut". The story revolves around the murder of a shyster contractor, Goldy's current catering assignment at a modeling shoot, and the historical museum in her Colorado town. In her defense, I will chalk part of it up to outside distractions as I did not have as much to devote to reading this book as I would have liked. But even so, the book seemed choppy to me. I enjoyed it, but only because I've already come to know and love Goldy and the other recurring characters such as Tom, Goldy's "lawman" husband; Marla, her well-dressed and even better-fed best friend; and Julian Teller, her vegetarian apprentice. However, I would not recommend that "Prime Cut" be the first Goldy mystery you read, lest it discourage you from reading her earlier, and in my opinion, more engrossing books. The characters in this one seemed one-dimensional and hard to get a handle on. Even the ones I KNEW I was supposed to like, such as Andre, Goldy's mentor, and Cameron Burr, a friend erroneously accused of the murder, left me apathetic. And as for the various women popping in and out of the modeling shoots and the artifact museum....who the heck WERE they? Even after finishing the book, I couldn't have told you. The final solution to the mystery, though, was imaginative and fun. I still love Goldy, and can't wait to dive into "Tough Cookie", which, as a matter of fact, awaits me on my nightstand.....

I have two great hobbies...cooking and reading. Diane Mott Davidson's books featuring Goldy Schulz just about covers all my bases! How else could I be entertained AND gather new recipes with such clear instructions and hints for success. The plot is predictable, sometimes silly...pure escapism intermingled with not so subtle pulls on one's hunger. I'll bet there is no one who doesn't get up and make a snack for themselves while reading one of these books about a caterer and sometime detective. The settings also are appealing...the Colorado Rockies, log cabins, cold, crisp air... Davidson writes sensually...and yet her characters react like real people. Especially Goldy when faced with a group of thin and starving models. Andre' her old chef cooking teacher is perfect foil for her in this book. There are cooking disasters, people hanging from beams..missing collectible cookbooks...which will hit home with anyone who collects books. If you want a good, quick read...and don't mind being getting the munchies...read Davidson's newest book.."Prime Cut"...

I am intrigued as I read the reviews of this book by how many reviewers commented on the 'character flaws' they saw in "Prime Cut" and how few commented on the novel itself. I think there's a reason for this. Anyone who has lived and worked in a small town knows that life can be pretty pedestrian by Big Apple standards, and so it would seem that this plot (high fashion novels, real estate developments, politics, and life among the greedy rich) might be pretty fantastic stuff for a small, sleepy mountain town. But the element of fantasy doesn't hold for the characters: Goldie, our erstwhile heroine, has a temper, a big mouth, and a fear of her teenage son; Arch, her son, is greeting his manhood with bravado and hormones; Tom, her policeman-husband, is making a terrible mess in the kitchen with his carpetry attempts; and many of the other characters are like some of our own neighbors--ill tempered, boorish, and not too bright. The novel LOOKS like fantasy, and SOUNDS like real life, an incongruous combination. It's got several plot lines to keep us reading and racing to the end, and some delectable recipes which will slow us down and clog our arteries. In the last analysis it's a delightful dessert: a smooth creme brulee with a tint of tangy citrus, as Goldie would say.